Stuff that hasn't worked

[cullynthedwarf]

After seeing the popularity of my post about house rules that tend to work well for people I thought another good question to ask is what home brew rules utterly destroyed your tables?

[JackPhoenix]

None in 5e, as I'm careful about what houserules I introduce.

Waaaay back in 3e, however, when I was just starting with D&D, I've used "3 natural 20's in a row is an instant death" rule. Cue BBEG taking Lesser Fire Orb (or however that spell was named.... level 1, there were versions for most elemental damage types) to the face during his introduction, before he could take a single action in combat.... Not table destroying, but definitely plot-destroying.

[cullynthedwarf]

Yeah but the odds of that happening are like what one in 8000?

[etrpgb]

I guess it is well known stuff:

Barbarian rage as bonus action. It is just annoying for many characters: Rogue/Barbarian? No cunning action. Two-weapon fighting? No second attack... As a matter of fact, if I am Master I allow to go in rage as bonus action or as part of the attack action

Beastmaster: if you do the math it is actually quite strong. But it is not fun to play as it feels you are playing a guy with a guided robot.

Similarly, the Berserker Barbarian. By the numbers is strong. But the fact of the exhaustion is kinda pushing away players. As a matter of fact in my groups I never saw it played.

Thanks the fact Bards are so good in any ability check makes Bards better than the Rogues or Fighters to do a "wrestler like" character (especially Lore Bards). Bards are also better to Conterspell and Dispel Magic than Wizards.

If you manage to activate the "extra damage" Booming Blade is better than two attacks via Extra Attack.



Nothing really big or game breaking. But those are on top of my head.

[MrStabby]

Flanking rules. Not game destroying but had a bad experience with that.

Side initiative. A few ruined sessions before we moved away.

I played in a game with persistent injuries from critical hits. After a few sessions the party frontline were pretty much incapable of anything - regeneration spells were needed to fix and the party didn't have access to these and each adventure cost more in terms of injury than it brought back in terms of loot.

[Zhorn]

(homebrew) massive damage - too much to keep track of. would work fine with some computer to keep track of, but playing in pen'n'paper mode it just became a mess. Switched to a crit table instead, much easier.

(official variant rule) flanking - never again. advantage mechanisms became meaningless.

(common interpretation) Lucky feat - triple advantage. Whole table, every character, spending first ASI/feat on getting lucky, proceeding to intentionally impose disadvantage on themselves to trigger triple advantage. Now go by the "Lucky is applied to one dice before advantage/disadvantage is resolved" version.

[47Ace]

Not exactly a house rule but a country that banes magic didn't work. Also, a setting with stable countries with police forces doesn't work as a place to have adventures in.

[MoiMagnus]

I concur with flanking. If you really really want flanking, replace the advantage advised by the DMG by a +2, or a +1d4. But do not grant advantages for flanking. It's not horrible, but I felt that we lost tactical depth instead of winning some of it, so completely counterproductive.

[ImproperJustice]

Downtime rules......

As a GM I was excited about the structure they provided.

My players saw them as a pointless slog, and got super frustrated with the magic item purchase rules.

[cullynthedwarf]

I concur with flanking. If you really really want flanking, replace the advantage advised by the DMG by a +2, or a +1d4. But do not grant advantages for flanking. It's not horrible, but I felt that we lost tactical depth instead of winning some of it, so completely counterproductive.

Something I saw online... Somewhere... Was the idea that flanking gets the same bonuses as cover. 1/2 cover gives a +2 bonus to AC while flanking gives a +2 bonus to hit on the other hand 3/4 cover gives a +5 to AC while 3 or more people gain a +5 to hit. This of course means that ganging up on some one because much more tactically sound. Just a thought.

Of course this is just my opinion and I could be wrong

[cullynthedwarf]

(homebrew) massive damage - too much to keep track of. would work fine with some computer to keep track of, but playing in pen'n'paper mode it just became a mess. Switched to a crit table instead, much easier.

An old 3.5 rule form!massive damage was, for a medium character, if you take 50 points of damage from a single attack, not a single round but one swing or cast, you die from massive damage or go into shock. Larger creatures had a higher number & smaller creatures had a lesser number.

At the higher levels this was still valid since while the players can hit harder very few things drop 50 points of damage in a single hit.

But this is just my opinion and I could be wrong.

[Composer99]

I guess it is well known stuff:

Barbarian rage as bonus action. It is just annoying for many characters: Rogue/Barbarian? No cunning action. Two-weapon fighting? No second attack... As a matter of fact, if I am Master I allow to go in rage as bonus action or as part of the attack action

Beastmaster: if you do the math it is actually quite strong. But it is not fun to play as it feels you are playing a guy with a guided robot.

Similarly, the Berserker Barbarian. By the numbers is strong. But the fact of the exhaustion is kinda pushing away players. As a matter of fact in my groups I never saw it played.

Thanks the fact Bards are so good in any ability check makes Bards better than the Rogues or Fighters to do a "wrestler like" character (especially Lore Bards). Bards are also better to Conterspell and Dispel Magic than Wizards.

If you manage to activate the "extra damage" Booming Blade is better than two attacks via Extra Attack.



Nothing really big or game breaking. But those are on top of my head.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of the thread to discuss homebrew, house rules, and variant rules that went bad, and not issues with the core rules themselves? That is how the original poster describes it, yes?

[cullynthedwarf]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of the thread to discuss homebrew, house rules, and variant rules that went bad, and not issues with the core rules themselves? That is how the original poster describes it, yes?

Your not wrong. But let's face some times the reason we use house rules is because the RAW or RAI are lacking, some how.

I also can't seem to help myself that if a question pops up and I know or believe I have a fix for it, I let people know.

[etrpgb]

Your not wrong. But let's face some times the reason we use house rules is because the RAW or RAI are lacking, some how.

I also can't seem to help myself that if a question pops up and I know or believe I have a fix for it, I let people know.

Funnily I come here to add another thing I noticed by RAW... but, I will simply say that I am sorry, I skimmed the opening message too quickly.


In my games after so many bad experiences with home-brew rules in dnd 5e we become really stingy in making new rules just because we feel it.
We do only after playing RAW for a while or if the RAW is not clear or literally does not make sense. This way it is very difficult to have bad experiences.

[LentilNinja]

From 3.5:

1. Massive Damage - Barely tanked an attack but was still alive. DM made me roll the CON save which I'd only succeed on a nat 20 (my CON was too low to pass, but DM ruled a nat 20 passed any check). Failed. Cashed in a reroll. Failed. Died with HP above 0.
2. Insta-Kill - Player killed interesting boss with 3 crits. I didn't even realize the fight was over.

From 5e:

Flanking. Granted a TWF Fighter 2d20 on every roll, which made them think 5e was unbalanced.

[MrStabby]

Funnily I come here to add another thing I noticed by RAW... but, I will simply say that I am sorry, I skimmed the opening message too quickly.


In my games after so many bad experiences with home-brew rules in dnd 5e we become really stingy in making new rules just because we feel it.
We do only after playing RAW for a while or if the RAW is not clear or literally does not make sense. This way it is very difficult to have bad experiences.

Still trying to work out a balanced set of homebrew for light, vision, hiding and stealth.

Nothing I have seen seems to make this aspect of the game work as intended.

[ImproperJustice]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of the thread to discuss homebrew, house rules, and variant rules that went bad, and not issues with the core rules themselves? That is how the original poster describes it, yes?

Wow. Your right. I totally missed the bus on that somehow.

[Slipperychicken]

Spell points are otherwise great, but for a life cleric healbot being able to cast Healing Word 25+ times, while also keeping bless up basically for free, makes it near impossible for the party to die

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

Some elaborately made critical success/fail tables are more trouble than they're worth. They seem to be popular and a lot of DMs I've run into them use them, but I've never found them fun as a player. They either make a mockery of what should be a professional adventurer (You shoot yourself in the foot with an arrow) and punish multiple attack classes, or trivivalize some encounters if you get a lucky crit.

One of my first campaigns used one and our second combat ended with us TPKing ourselves, due to a couple of natural 1s from our Archer and Nat 20's from goblins that had us on the backfoot and unable to escape from the start (Our Archer killed our rogue, I got knocked out trying to go save him, Archer took enough health from our Wizard to get home low enough to get one shot from a Goblin, Archer got killed by a flurry of crossbow bolts after). After the second natural 1, we were all pretty annoyed at the table.

[Waazraath]

After seeing the popularity of my post about house rules that tend to work well for people I thought another good question to ask is what home brew rules utterly destroyed your tables?

Not a house rule, but starting a campaign as a DM with 1st level characters finding a deck of many things, out of curiosity if they would handle the situation sensibly, was definitely something that 'hadn't worked'.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

Not a house rule, but starting a campaign as a DM with 1st level characters finding a deck of many things, out of curiosity if they would handle the situation sensibly, was definitely something that 'hadn't worked'.

Yeah, that's something you have to give to higher level characters where the players are already invested. Give it to level 1's and they're going to draw every time 'cause the potential rewards will outweigh having to reroll a character they haven't gotten attached to yet.

[TheCorsairMalac]

Fumbles. These are when checks not only automatically fail on a natural 1, but something undesirable also happens. I don't like them because I like to play characters that roll the d20 a lot.

My biggest complaint is that fumbles don't affect all player classes equally. Non-spellcasters roll the d20 a lot, and therefore have many chances to fumble. A save-or-suck spellcaster almost never rolls the d20, and so he never fumbles.

In essence, fumbles make martial classes not only less versatile than spellcasters, but also comically clumsy and prone to self-harm.

If the DM makes fumbles apply to saving throws, play as a spellcaster and specialize in area-of-effect debuffs. Behold how spells such as grease, web, and entangle now disarm, incapacitate, paralyze, and damage. Also note that damaging spells may now ignite victims for damage-over-time, temporarily freeze them in place, or inflict fear effects.

[Willie the Duck]

After seeing the popularity of my post about house rules that tend to work well for people I thought another good question to ask is what home brew rules utterly destroyed your tables?

Not a house rule per se, but a custom-researched homebrew spell that a player suggested -- Ritual cast-able rope trick that lasted 9 hours. Think Leodmund's Tiny Hut, but anyone not seeing you enter it has a hard time realizing you are there, so they don't necessarily prepare countermeasures for when the spell ends. If you thought it was hard to police the 5 minute workday before...

Your not wrong. But let's face some times the reason we use house rules is because the RAW or RAI are lacking, some how.

In that case, simulacrums of casters who have Wish memorized somehow lose that memorization in the creation process is a houserule I have instituted as a fix to a lacking RAW. It hasn't come up though (I don't think anyone wants to be 'that guy' who tries to get away with wish/simulacrum).

[Pex]

Rolling a 1 screws you over.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Fumble tables: Ended our first campaign within the first 2 sessions.
Custom Boons: Not balanced well, made the PC's unkillable, totally my fault
Spell Points: Too strong, being pulled from our games after our waterdeep campaign.
Homebrew classes: Aside from Blood Hunter, either too far above or below curve. Needs to be heavily vetted.
Point buy only: Wasn't fun for the players.

[Pex]

That Mike Mearls alternative initiative system where you have to declare what you're doing that round right then and there when rolling for initiative, and what you're doing determines which die you roll for initiative. You can't change your mind about your action unless you do nothing.

[Luccan]

Some elaborately made critical success/fail tables are more trouble than they're worth. They seem to be popular and a lot of DMs I've run into them use them, but I've never found them fun as a player. They either make a mockery of what should be a professional adventurer (You shoot yourself in the foot with an arrow) and punish multiple attack classes, or trivivalize some encounters if you get a lucky crit.

One of my first campaigns used one and our second combat ended with us TPKing ourselves, due to a couple of natural 1s from our Archer and Nat 20's from goblins that had us on the backfoot and unable to escape from the start (Our Archer killed our rogue, I got knocked out trying to go save him, Archer took enough health from our Wizard to get home low enough to get one shot from a Goblin, Archer got killed by a flurry of crossbow bolts after). After the second natural 1, we were all pretty annoyed at the table.

Reminds me of an expanded wild magic table I've seen brought up (which I think came from some D&D stream). Wild Magic Sorcerer has issues, but the majority of their wild magic effects aren't actively harmful. This table, however, is huge and seems designed to screw the players over. Except for the rare instances it gives massive bonuses or unique items or cool followers/pets. Significantly more wild than the real table? Yes. Good for actual play? Doesn't seem to be.

[etrpgb]

My biggest complaint is that fumbles don't affect all player classes equally. Non-spellcasters roll the d20 a lot, and therefore have many chances to fumble. A save-or-suck spellcaster almost never rolls the d20, and so he never fumbles.

In essence, fumbles make martial classes not only less versatile than spellcasters, but also comically clumsy and prone to self-harm..

I agree fumbles are a bad idea but I had a DM that actually compensate a bit stating that spells fumbles too if the opposing saving throw were a 20. Imagine a wizard blowing up his own arm when casting fireball and you get the idea.

[Waazraath]

I agree fumbles are a bad idea but I had a DM that actually compensate a bit stating that spells fumbles too if the opposing saving throw were a 20. Imagine a wizard blowing up his own arm when casting fireball and you get the idea.

This is actually quite good, for a table that enjoys comical failure.

[MoiMagnus]

I agree fumbles are a bad idea but I had a DM that actually compensate a bit stating that spells fumbles too if the opposing saving throw were a 20. Imagine a wizard blowing up his own arm when casting fireball and you get the idea.

That's kind of weird to have your chance of fumble depending on the number of target of your fireball.

That's why when we use crit and fumble tables (which is not that often), we usually apply the rule "crit and fumble tables are only use for the first d20 rolled for attack or save of each turn".
[Which mean multi-attack and zone attacks don't overly increase your proba of fumble or crit]